Countdown
by leezh
Summary: Lit. Futurefic. Because they're just meant to be. Used to be titled 'Five Minutes...'. I decided to put the series under the series' name as one story altogether. 2nd installment is up: 'Four Hours: Good Night, and Good Morning'.
1. Five Minutes: A History of Disappearance

**Title: **Five Minutes: A History of Disappearance

**Author:** leezh

**Beta Reader:** karathephantom (thank you for the beta!)

**Chapter Summary: **_Never would she imagine the devil himself popping up between the toppings of her hotdog…_

**Disclaimer:** I'm waiting here for ASP to call the police on me 'coz I'm kidnapping her characters. evil laughs

**Notes:** Future fic, sets several years after season 7. The first installment of the '_Countdown'_ series. Written for _fivebyfiction_ challenge at Livejournal.

**COUNTDOWN**

_Because they're just meant to be…_

**"Five Minutes: A History of Disappearance"**

Honestly, all she was doing was buying – or rather, attempting to buy - her lunch in the middle of downtown New York one completely innocent afternoon, when it all happened.

Well, she probably should have known. There were some people who were extremely good at the art of appearing and disappearing in a blink of an eye, and he was clearly one of the experts.

_The_ old expert.

But never would she imagine the devil himself popping up between the toppings of her hotdog.

Rory Gilmore was watching Joe (the hotdog guy) applying some mayonnaise over her hotdog when a figure emerged on the corner of her eyes, approaching the stand. She gave it no further attention as she saw the glimpse of a certain bottle in the vendor's hands.

"Whoa, wait, Joe, I don't want some chili today, just-"

"Rory?"

She remembered that voice too well.

Rory just needed to turn her head slightly to her side to confirm the identity of the voice's owner.

"Jess?"

"What are you-" they both asked at the same time, before falling into silence, knowing exactly how the most standard question would go.

It was he who recovered quicker.

"Got stuff," he said.

It was a simple answer, one that was too short with no real explanation. It was the typical Danes' family trait that applied to the guys, who were monosyllabic at best.

Rory wondered whether there was anything in him that was changed. So far, there was nothing she could see. His fashion style wasn't that drastically matured since she last saw him in Philadelphia, as he still sported the t-shirt-with-suit look, only instead of jeans he had dark fabric pants on. He still got some bangs over his face, there was no goatee visible, and much to her delight, he hadn't lost his intense gaze.

But Jess never ceased to amaze her.

"Liz got another baby," he continued. "She and T.J. were here when it happened."

However, some things are still too hard to change, after all, because those two quick lines turned out to be the extent of his new elaborating behavior.

He eyed her, next, in silence, from top to bottom, and she wondered whether her skirt was too short or too corporate. Usually she went with laid back as she did much traveling, but in a short period of time when she stayed domestic, she just wanted to give out a sophisticated look and hence picked the skirt and blazer.

She was nervous about her hair too, which she had grown back to the high school length, but then she wondered why Rory Gilmore cared about Jess Mariano's opinion so much.

"You look – well," he commented. "Now senior online correspondent, huh?"

"Yeah," she agreed, and then they took another pause.

"I finally got your second book." It was her turn to break the silence. "It's amazing, Jess."

He shrugged. "Helps pay the bills."

Rory smiled. Definitely not much of a change.

"Miss Gilmore?"

Both Rory and Jess turned to look at Joe the hotdog guy.

"Your hotdogs?" Joe helpfully reminded her, his hands full. "One with everything but chili, and one just with ketchup?"

"Yes, thanks, Joe." She gave him the money, taking the hotdogs from him. She could feel Jess' stare on her, burning her face, and suddenly a crazy question popped up in her mind.

_Does he possibly wonder whether the hotdog is for Lo-_

"I heard he ran off with a supermodel," he said quietly, didn't use any name, but both of them knew exactly whom he was talking about.

"The amount of pressure became too much," she replied, amazed that she could defend the man who said that he would commit his entire life for her in marriage but later eloped to Italy after a suspected one night stand. "He needed the freedom."

But Rory had to admit that Logan was just a history.

Unfortunately, it was also a history that she had said that she loved Logan a few years back. And by the indications, Jess remembered that particular bit of history as well, where she once chose Logan over him, because she noticed that his lunch was forgotten in an instant.

"Well, it's nice meeting you," he said, though the way he said it, he could as well mean the other way around. "Goodbye, Rory."

Okay, she got a goodbye now.

But-

"Jess?"

He turned, his expression was indescribable.

"Do you have a number I can contact you with? Let me just rush over to Susie-" she referred one of the hotdogs in her hands to a blond girl, sitting on a bench who was waving back at her, smiling. "- and give her our lunch so I can jot it down."

Both of them said nothing of some sort, but she could feel the mood lifted up in all of the sudden as she ended up copying his number, address, and even email address, to which he did likewise.

By the time Jess excused himself to hurry to the hospital, Rory felt that this time, their parting left no hurricane as it used to. She thought it was nice of them to find each other again, when all she was doing was attempting to buy her lunch in the middle of downtown Manhattan one completely innocent afternoon.

_Yes_, Rory mused, making her way to Susie, smiling as she did so, _it is definitely nice_.

**To be continued…**


	2. Four Hours: Good Night, and Good Morning

**Series: **Countdown

**Title:** Four Hours: Good Night, and Good Morning

**Author:** leezh

**Beta reader:** karathephantom

**Disclaimer:** Still waiting for the ransom, (that is to put them back together)…

**Notes:** Future fic, sets several years after season 7. The second installment of the 'Countdown' series. Written for fivebyfiction challenge at Livejournal.

And I just want to say thank you for all of you who review!! Your feedback mean A LOT to me. ) Hope you can enjoy this chapter more!

Previously on Countdown:

_Rory met with Jess again in the most unexpected place: in front of a hotdog stand. They spent roughly five minutes of their time and ended up swapping ways to contact one another._

_Several weeks had passed, however, and there was no further news exchanged from both of them…_

**COUNTDOWN**

_Because they're just meant to be…_

"**Four Hours: Good Night, and Good Morning"**

She knew that she was so damaging her brain and becoming an iBook addict at the same time.

It was 2.32 a.m. in the morning, but Rory Gilmore was still glued to the front of the tiny computer that no doubt had been overheated long ago, when the night was still young. She had left it on since morning, while she'd dedicated her day – the day before – to running off to conventions and press conferences. She'd also sacrificed her dinnertime and her whole night for the sake of research. And after all of that, what she had left was a few hours before she had to hop on another plane for another country to do a follow-up on the story she was working on. And the joy was, she needed her iBook powered up in flight for the sake of editing.

Such was the life of a correspondent and her portable computer.

Rory took another sip of her coffee, thinking of tucking in early, as she could already feel the beginnings of a dull headache.

It had been a very long day.

Her fingers were prepared to close all of the browser windows on her screen when the tab of her messenger blinked.

Someone just went online.

Wondering how crazy she would sound if she bet it was Lane – she should either be busy with her kids or catching up on her sleep – Rory scanned her contact list in a swoop.

No one else was online, except for her and-

_DoDger? _

Rory paused involuntarily.

_It must be Jess!_ Rory could feel her mind starting to be overloaded by the questions._But why? How? What-_

Rory shook her head. She was way overreacting.

She had copied his email address a few weeks ago when they'd unexpectedly met by the hotdog stand, had she not? Somehow, one way or another, she should have listed Jess on her messenger contact list.

_It's as simple as that_, Rory thought. _So why am I freaking out?_

_Maybe_, she mused, _it's because he's using that username. _

Dodger. Years ago, when they'd first met, Jess had stolen her copy of 'Howl', only to return it to her almost immediately. She'd ended up calling him 'Dodger', and now, Rory had to admit, it was appropriate. The Artful Dodger, from 'Oliver Twist', _juvenile as one would wish to see_, Charles Dickens had described him.

Rory debated with herself on if she should change her username to 'Despot' (she couldn't believe she still remembered that) after the nickname that Jess had given her once, but she decided against it. After all, she didn't know why Jess had chosen his username.

There was no message from him. Perhaps he hadn't scanned his contact list yet.

Rory hesitated for a few seconds before typing him a quick greeting.

**RGilmore:** Hey

His reply came even faster.

**DoDger:** Hey

**DoDger:** Still up?

**DoDger:** You've been online for seventeen hours

**DoDger:** Impressive

_For as monosyllabic as he is in person, he sure does talk a lot online._

**DoDger:** They push you hard?

She sent him an eyes-rolling smiley.

**RGilmore:** A journalist has to pay her dues.

**RGilmore:** You know, research.

**RGilmore:** And what are you doing?

**RGilmore:** Just got home or something?

When she realized what she'd just said, she wanted to smack herself. It was Friday – Saturday dawn, actually, and she'd asked him if he'd just gotten home.

_Nice, Rory_, said the sarcastic voice in her head. _Make him cockier, why don't you?_

Her eyes caught the notification on her messenger. _'DoDger is typing a message.'_ She held her breath.

**DoDger:** Midnight muse

That was his only answer. No arrogant reply. No playful teasing. Was it already beyond their age, or he just opted not to answer the implied question?

_Is he seeing someone, then?_ Her mind started to go crazy on her. _Or maybe he's-_

**DoDger:** Which cup are you on now?

Rory didn't know whether she should blush or laugh. She took the last sip of her current coffee and reached for another take-out cup as a new message appeared.

**DoDger:** Fifth?

**RGilmore:** _"Behind every successful woman is the substantial amount of coffee." _

**DoDger:** Appropriate quote

**DoDger:** Whose is it?

**RGilmore:** Stephanie Piro.

**DoDger:** That cartoonist chick?

**DoDger:** Cool

**RGilmore:** So, you're a night owl?

**DoDger:** Maybe

Drinking her new cup of coffee, Rory kept her eyes on the screen. A new line appeared from Jess.

**DoDger:** Maybe not

Somehow, his latest reply transported her back to their teenage years. It felt like it had all those many years ago, back when she was still a naïve girl and he was "the world's most misunderstood punk". She wouldn't admit her obvious attraction to him, and he was - well, Rory wasn't sure whether Jess had been doing the same thing, or if he just wasn't used to expressing his feelings properly. But they surely had spent quite a lot of time implying things rather than saying them out loud.

Now, however, they were older. Now they were wiser.

Rory tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear instinctively, and against her will, her fingers proceeded on dancing on the keyboard.

Furthermore, the 'enter' button was accidentally pressed.

**RGilmore:** Are you admitting that you're stalking me?

_Crud. _

Maybe she hadn't gotten wiser after all.

She completely had no idea how he was doing. He could as well be married with five kids – three of them were triplets – and lived half his life in and out of jail (wait, strike that, Jess was too smart for that kind of life) . He probably was surrounded by groupies (did writers have groupies?), now that his second book was doing well on the bestseller list, and had been hopping from one die-hard fan to another.

On the other hand, he didn't know how she was doing either. She only had one other serious relationship after Logan, and to tell the truth, a serious relationship was the least on her mind right now, what with her hectic schedule and traveling.

The only problem was, with that message she'd sent him, it would be easy for him to think that she was still hoping for him.

But what the hell, she had realized long time ago that if they had been willing to be honest to themselves and to each other, they probably would have gotten married, divorced for a few hours, and then gotten back on the marriage for the second time. Or they could have been ended up killing each other (if her Mom or Grandma hadn't gotten to him first), but that wasn't the point. The point was there was too much misunderstanding going on between them to make the two of them work, and that was precisely why they didn't last before.

Maybe it was time to let him know what she really meant.

After all, it was Jess. If there was any guy that she thought could handle her way of crazy thinking, it should be him.

Rory tapped her fingers on the keyboard. No response from Jess yet.

Had she gone too far too soon?

**RGilmore:** Jess, are you still there?

She waited for another full minute before his reply appeared.

**DoDger:** Sorry, just had to go to the bathroom

**DoDger:** I'm still here

**DoDger:** Have you ever checked Clavell out?

**DoDger:** He's not bad

Of course, she was skeptical of his answer. _He's just gone to the bathroom?_ But the invitation of having a decent discussion about literature was too wonderful to pass by.

Rory let it slide. Her rush of excitement was too great to let room for anything else. It had been a while since she was able to discuss all the books she'd managed to cram between the research and plane hours. Susie, her best friend at work, didn't read (or rather, didn't read _much_), and the last time she'd had any discussion regarding books was with Tim, her editor, and the book they'd discussed was J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series. Anyways, even that hadn't been about the books, but about the controversy and phenomenon surrounding them.

Her fingers danced continuously on the keyboard, trading lines upon lines of heated discussion with Jess. Their subject moved from Wolfe and Kerouac to her own traveling to his new habit of commuting between Philly and New York now, as Truncheon, the bookstore and publishing company where he still worked, had apparently branched out.

In return, Rory informed him that Luke and Lorelai was doing well, as Luke-and-Lorelai well as they could be. But she also told him that it was the recent progress she knew.

It was a few hours later before either of them realized that the sun had risen.

**DoDger:** Didn't you say that you had a plane to catch?

_Damn_. She'd almost forgotten about that. Rory glanced at the clock on the right bottom corner of her screen. It was past 6 a.m., which meant that she only had a little more than an hour left to pack (or rather, jam everything into) her suitcase and check out of the hotel.

She glanced to her right. Among the empty take-out coffee cups, there was still one that was full. Not caring that it was cold and a few hours old, Rory tasted it.

_Coffee is coffee. _

She knew she had to go. A few words of her goodbye were already typed before she realized another line had appeared from Jess.

She almost couldn't believe that he'd actually realized and remembered her question, after four hours of conversation, at that.

**DoDger:** To answer your previously implied question, I'm on my own

Rory sipped her coffee, smiling slightly, and then typed into her notebook.

**RGilmore:** I have to go. Talk to you soon. )

**FIN.**

Next installment: **"Three Days – Day 1: Two and a Half Weeks Later"**


End file.
